Cuzco Journal; Archeologist Wants to Reconquer Shrine for Incas

By NATHANIEL C. NASH,

Published: August 31, 1993

CUZCO, Peru—
Raymundo Bejar Navarro, an archeologist, climbs the adobe wall up onto the grounds of the Santo Domingo monastery here in the center of town.

Shaking his head, he complains that the four resident monks are refusing to let his scientific team dig in the area. Defiantly, looking up at the towering, 350-year-old Spanish church, he hisses through his teeth, "They should tear this down."

The reason for such emotion is that the Santo Domingo church and monastery sit atop the holiest shrine of the Inca culture -- the Temple of the Sun, or Koricancha in Quechua. And Mr. Bejar is leading a three-year effort to restore the temple. Two Conflicting Cultures

The church is indeed a mixture of the two conflicting cultures. Its foundations and supporting walls are of the exquisitely carved Inca stones, made out of andesite, that were carved with stone tools from quarries miles away, and so finely shaped at the building site that no mortar was needed. Even today, a knife does not fit between the joints.

Above the Inca masonry is the Spanish construction of roughly cut stones put together with adobe mortar, giving the church a two-tone texture. Inside, large parts of the gilded baroque monastery have been removed to reveal four stone chambers of the original Inca temple.

Recently the digging has produced a new phase of the centuries-old struggle between the conquerors and the conquered of Peru, between the modern-day Roman Catholic Church and the descendants of the Incas, who yielded to Francisco Pizarro in 1532.

"They have so many churches throughout Peru," Mr. Bejar said. "Why do they have to have one right on top of the holiest Inca site? I thought this was the year when the church was apologizing for past abuses. If they abused anyone, they abused the Incas." Threat of Excommunication

Mr. Bejar, who is a Roman Catholic, has beliefs that have not sat well with the church hierarchy. His thinking has been called blasphemy, and he has received threats of excommunication. Lawsuits have been filed by the Dominican monastery against the city of Cuzco to prevent any "robbing of church property."

"The capricious Mr. Bejar is pretending to take down a church that has been declared a world monument by Unesco," said the Rev. Domingo Gamarra, director of the monastery. "The church represents the meeting of two cultures. What he is doing is anti-Christian, and we will defend the church to the very end."

Until conquered by the Spanish, the Temple of the Sun was the center of the vast Inca empire, which stretched from northern Venezuela to the Patagonia in Argentina. Here was the repository of the realm's gold treasure, showcase of its exquisite stone carving technology and central seat of government.

As was customary when the Spaniards conquered an area, they imposed Catholicism on the Incas and used the Koricancha structure as a church. In 1650 an earthquake destroyed part of the temple, so the Spanish tore most of the temple down and used the finely cut stones to build the existing church and monastery.

In 1953 another quake hit the building. Many of the Spanish-built walls collapsed, revealing parts of the original structure hidden for centuries. In reconstructing Santo Domingo, church officials agreed not to build on some of the existing Inca walls.

For Jesus Choque, a Quechua Indian working on the digging project, the idea of the Santo Domingo church resting atop the Inca temple is a bitter one, and he says flatly that he wants the church torn down.

"It's the symbol of the oppression of our culture, the abuse of my Andean past," he said. "Where is my place to worship? They have stolen the stones of my temple."

Such cultural sensitivities are being fed by politicians. Daniel Estrada, Mayor of Cuzco, in his third term, has been highly successful, appealing to the Inca roots of Cuzquenos, as Cuzco residents are known. Mayor Pledges Sensitivity

"This is a victimized society, oppressed and suppressed for centuries, and we intend to change that by being sensitive to the Andean beliefs," Mr. Estrada said. "For them Cuzco is the Sacred City."

Recently, Mr. Estrada has invested money earned from taxes on soft drinks and other items to rejuvenate Cuzco, installing fountains, rebuilding narrow streets in the old part of town and putting up a 40-foot statue of the great Inca emperor, Pachacutec, on top of a 110-foot stone base, at a cost of more than $1 million.

But Koricancha represents his most ambitious project. Using $2 million of the municipality's funds, the Mayor bought the land around the temple, tore down the existing houses and began excavating in the area that once was the outer court.

Motives to resurrect the Inca culture have a mercantile side as well. The Inca ruins around Cuzco, including the breathtaking Machu Picchu, have created Peru's tourist engine. But problems with guerrilla violence and cholera in early 1991 cut tourism down to 15 percent of its levels in the early 1980's. This has left 40 percent of Cuzquenos unemployed and 20 percent underemployed. Slight Recovery in Tourism

Tourism has seen a slight recovery in the two and a half years since the outbreak of cholera in early 1991, but only to 40 percent of previous levels.

A restored Koricancha is considered to be a major piece in reviving tourism in Cuzco. But if the dispute is not resolved, it may look like just nondescript ruins next to a colonial church. And, what is more, the most scientifically important site of Koricancha -- the central temple chamber -- may never be touched by archeologists, since it rests directly under the church's sanctuary.

"The monks don't want to let anyone dig, because they are afraid they'll lose the property," said Prof. John Rowe, an archeologist at the University of California in Berkeley and an adviser to the Koricancha project. "They are only a few monks in a huge piece of property, but no one here wants to take on the church."

Photo: Nowhere is the history of Peru more starkly drawn than at a Santo Domingo monastery in Cuzco, where a 350-year-old Spanish church sits atop the holiest shrine of the Inca culture -- the Temple of the Sun. Archeologists are being opposed by priests who feel it would be blasphemy to mar the church. (Vera Lentz for The New York Times) Map of Peru showing location of Cuzco.